News

Joseph M. Wagovich named ORNL Public Affairs Director

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 30, 1998 — Joseph M. Wagovich has been named director of Communications and Public Affairs at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

Wagovich has more than 20 years of experience in creating and managing public relations programs in the aerospace, electronics, and energy technology sectors. He served most recently as Public Information Manager at Sanders, a Lockheed Martin company in Nashua, N.H.

Wagovich is responsible to the ORNL Director for the Laboratory's employee communications, media relations, community outreach, protocol, emergency public information, special publications, and honors and awards programs.

At Sanders, Wagovich managed media relations, employee communications, and advertising programs in support of that company's broad range of defense and commercial electronics programs. Previously, he held numerous public affairs positions with the U.S. Air Force, including several years in key public affairs positions in the Pentagon.

Wagovich was chief of public affairs at the U.S. On-Site Inspection Agency in Washington, D.C., where he conducted an international media relations program to win support for U.S.-Soviet Treaty on-site missile inspections under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. He served for two years as a press officer at DOE Headquarters before joining Sanders in 1994.

Wagovich received a bachelor of arts degree in English from St. Louis University, a master of arts in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a master of business administration from the University of Dayton. He is an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

He and his wife, Marjorie, will reside in Oak Ridge. They have a daughter, Stacy Silverman who lives in Athens, Ga., and son, Joe, in Milwaukee.

ORNL, one of DOE's multiprogram national research and development facilities, is managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation.